The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

A PROPOSED bill to set up a sex offenders' register would be introduced under a DNA government.

The promise to introduce the bill, known as Marco's Law, came from DNA leader Branville McCartney at the party's protest against crime and violence.

The bill proposes a penalty of life in prison for any sex offender unless the offender is no longer deemed a threat to society.

Speaking in Rawson Square yesterday, Mr McCartney said: "When we become the government, we will introduce a bill known as 'Marco's Law' that deals with the sex offenders' register.

"We heard the Minister of Social Services (Loretta Butler-Turner) say it should not happen because the country is too small and they would be discriminated against.

"Too bad! You don't give them any special privileges. I cry shame on you to even consider that."

The call for a sex offenders' register came about last year after a number of molestation cases surfaced before the courts and an 11-year-old boy, Marco Archer, was sexually assaulted and killed.

Since then there has been a public outcry for the register, which would label all past offenders who have served time in prison for sexual offences.

DNA candidate for Mt Moriah, Wayne Munroe, said the bill would be "graded."

"Not only will you know who are sexual offenders, but there are some classes of sexual offenders who are sexual predators.

"You will know who the sexual predators are that have been released because that is the first amendment that will be introduced," he said.

The attorney said the second amendment under the proposed law would keep sexual predators incarcerated for life unless they were cleared and were no longer deemed a threat to society, a similar practice done in the United Kingdom and other countries for the past decade.

"And in that decade, Mr Ingraham has been in power. Mr Christie has been in power. And dangerous criminals have been released, who, had this law been in place, would not have been released and caused damage."